Pastor Matt Hayden of Wilks, Texas is a new creation in more than the spiritual sense. Once a Miami police detective, the hero of The Preacher’s First Murder entered the federal witness relocation program after a horrible day in which his brother and father, both cops, were killed. He changed his name, went to Lutheran seminary, and then the church sent him here. He has learned that the town and the church have their own strict rules of behavior. One of those is that the pastor needs to stay away from the Fire and Ice House, the bar just across the river from his church. It’s run by the beautiful Angie, daughter of Maeve, the owner, who suffers from Alzheimer’s.

Maeve goes missing, and Matt recruits some church members to help with the search – to the outrage of the Wilks family, which owns the town and runs the church. Their matriarch nurses a particular hatred for Maeve, but Matt feels a responsibility as a Christian.

When Maeve turns up dead, shot by a stupid Yankee hunter farther out of town than she should have been able to walk on her own, Matt’s old cop instincts tell him something’s fishy. And when the sleazy local gas station owner is murdered and Angie is arrested for it, Matt has no choice but to start his own investigation. Especially because he’s Angie’s alibi, and she refuses to let him reveal it, for the sake of his reputation in the church.

I’ve often said that I avoid novels written by women; my experience is that they tend to write their male characters poorly. I didn’t realize that author K. P. Gresham was a woman when I read this book, but I’m forced to admit – much against my will – that she didn’t do a bad job. And the writing in general was well done, which counts for a lot in the depressed world of Christian fiction.

I did have a few problems with the story, though. The picture of the Lutheran church in the book was surprisingly negative – the domination of church business by women was certainly realistic, but (although I grew up in a very puritanical church) I never encountered a church as judgmental as this one. We always understood that you can’t ostracize sinners – you have to reach out to them.

Also, I was a little puzzled by the theology. This does seem to be a Christian novel (the complete lack of dirty words is kind of a tip-off), but I wasn’t sure what theology was being promoted. Pastor Matt’s concern with doing good to others was perfectly consistent with Christian morality. But Christian morality seemed to be all he had. There was no mention of God’s grace or of the cross. A reader might get the impression that good deeds are all the Faith is about.

Still, The Preacher’s First Murder was pretty good, all in all. I might be persuaded to read the second book in the series.